Wednesday June 18, 2008

The girls needed as much rest as they could get today because they were scheduled for their first eye exams. The eye exam includes dilation of the pupils, holding the eyelids open, and shining bright lights into them. I know that I totally despise that part of my annual eye exam. I was warned that the babies are not real fond of this process either, so I decided not to observe the first one. But the nurse said Evie didn’t mind so much, and Maggie cried the entire time – about as I expected.

Dr. Todd Murdock is the girls’ ophthalmologist and is checking for retinopathy of prematurity. He explained to me that the blood vessels start growing around the retina at about 20 weeks gestation, but do not finish until approximately their due date. When babies are born prematurely, the blood vessels don’t necessarily grow around the eye, but start growing into it. It is typical that all premature babies have some form of this, but the degree to which it grows it what is monitored. The girls’ diagnosis is Phase 1, which is the lowest out of 4 phases. They will likely get weekly eye exams until there are 36 weeks gestation to monitor the growth. If they growth is fast or excessive, laser surgery is a possibility.

So, we let the girls just rest today and didn’t take them out for holding. Plus, they have been being a bit more finicky again with their oxygen and asking for more Nurse attention by going out of their ranges and causing their alarms to beep. Maggie increased her feedings to 28cc of milk based on her size (and to get her to grow more). Evie is receiving more caffeine (9cc) because she has grown so much!

Mom and Auntie Christie worked on scrapbook pages today, as we are certainly not going to have time at the end of the summer.